More or Less Church

Joanna Depue "DJ/Deacon J" writes original songs and liturgies, does daily Farm office work and records Barbara's eMos on The Geranium Farm. A singer and dog trainer she utilizes healing touch in her private massage practice. PLEASE share YOUR original ideas for worship, special liturgies, prayers, songs, sermons and noteworthy blogs right here.Send emails to: deaconj@geraniumfarm.org or add a comment on an existing post.

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Home, Saint Home

Now you well may wonder what this is.... It is a photo sent by good friend Mr. Frank Goodsir which appeared in the NY times on 19 July 2006. This wonderful picture by Andrea Mohin shows nature doing what nature does best : Adapting!! A pair of red tailed hawks have made their nest atop the shoulders of St. Andrew chisled for the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City..... all that with the bustling noises of lower Harlem bumping, honking, ringing, talking, rapping stories below.Thank you, Good Sir, for sharing this photo with us!

Monday, August 07, 2006

The Grass is ALWAYS (well, almost always) Greener...

Emmy Lou sat on the patio while I gazed on my back lawn with a dejected, glazed expression. She looked up at me and out into the yard and back up to me again. She was clueless.

I slumped down into chair on the patio. The little wheels in her doggie mind were turning. Good grief I could almost hear her thinking. There were no rabid squirrels, no wayward bunnies, no intruding dogs. I only left one floppy Frisbee on the loose, so that could not account for that vacant melancholic look. Should I sit closer? Does she see something I don't?That much was true. I saw two things: 1) the few yellow spots in the lawn that were a dead giveaway that a domestic critter lived on the property and 2) the grass needed mowing...... again.

From time to fitful time I get the notion that I want my lawn to be luxurious, lush and green. In a well-meaning weekend I trundle off to the local home improvement warehouse and invest in 'winterizer', weed-b-gone, fertilizer. Ah, but that - in the haze of 95 degree heat - is a distant memory.

Over the last ten years the trees in my yard have grown, their roots slowly exposing themselves from the faint cover of topsoil that is indigenous to ROCKland (fancy that) County, New York, US of A. This complication has elevated the mowing of the lawn from a simple task to a spectator sport.....(in an sport commentator's voice...) Will she clear the hurtles.... here's the approach........NNNOOOOO!! The mower is stopped in its tracks and our athlete is brought to tears!OK, that's an exaggeration, but it does become a test of wills to get the job done without too many sparks flying from the whirling blades of my honed instrument.

Isn't it noteworthy. I complain when the grass looks pitiful, I complain when it grows.

There's is certainly a parallel with many parishes. Poll most people at an annual meeting and one of the top ten 'wishes' on the wish list is for the parish to grow. There are strategies discussed and programs installed and postcards sent. And some times there is resulting parish growth.

Funny thing: Just when the parish begins to grow there are groans from some quarters about discomfort that the character of the parish is changing or that they are uncomfortable or who are 'those' people.

Perhaps the grass is greener on the other side of the fence..... chances are if that is the case, it cost your neighbors something to get it and maintain it that way..... whether it is the dog days of summer or not!